The grave or burial sites of deceased persons having a history of service in the U.S. armed services are commonly marked with decorative and commemorative plaques. Commonly, such plaques are made of bronze or brass, and such plaques often bear in bold relief upon their front sides the insignia of a military service unit (e.g., company insignia, battalion insignia, brigade insignia, division insignia, corp insignia, etc.) within which a deceased service person had served, along with further insignia designating the years of service of the deceased service person. Such plaques also commonly include a fixedly attached and downwardly extending ground spike for anchoring the plaque upon and extending the plaque upwardly from the ground at a location near such deceased service person's grave site. Such plaques also commonly present a vertically aligned series of flagpole receiving eyes or loops which may receive the lower end of a dowel rod flagpole. Typically, such flagpoles bear and display a country flag such as a U.S. flag at its upper end, such flag flying directly over the plaque.
The practice of utilizing grave marking plaques of the type described above for support of country flags, such as U.S. flags creates, and gives rise to problems relating to the proper flag use and flag display. For example, military regulations adopted in the United States, such as Army Regulation 840-10, Chapter 2, Subsection 2, Sub-Subsections (e) and (f), specify that the flag of the United States may be displayed during daytime “from reveille to retreat” and that twenty-four hour displays of the U.S. flag must be “properly illuminated with its own source of light during hours of darkness.” Regardless of whether a U.S. military regulation, such as AR 840-10 cited above, has controlling application to a particular usage of a country flag, such as the U.S. flag within a cemetery, the families and loved ones of deceased military personnel often desire to comply with and follow the spirit of honoring the flag by complying with such regulations. Removal of grave marker country flags during night hours is time consuming and burdensome, often leading to a family's undesirable choice and decision to forego usage and display of the country flag at a military service person's grave site.
The instant inventive grave marker assembly solves or ameliorates the problems and conflicting purposes described above by incorporating within a grave marker assembly a specially configured support arm which incorporates a solar powered LED light and a rechargeable electric storage battery combination for nighttime illumination of U.S. or other country flags which are incorporated as a part of the assemblies.